Media Matters has been noting that the mainstream corporate press -- which backed Bush to the hilt on Iraq and has yet to admit it was wrong to do so -- is heavily pushing the whole "accountability is partisanship" crapola:
In the aftermath of the release of Bush Department of Justice memos authorizing the CIA to use enhanced interrogation techniques with detainees, conservatives are comparing possible prosecutions of Bush administration officials with, in the words of radio host Mark Steyn, "the sort of thing that happens in banana republics."
Examples include:
-- On the April 21 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, radio host Bill Cunningham said of possible prosecutions of Bush administration officials, "Well, we shouldn't criminalize legal advice," later adding, "It makes us look ... like a banana republic, where each succeeding administration looks backwards."
-- On the April 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Fox News contributor Karl Rove stated: "[W]hat the Obama administration has done in the last several days is very dangerous. What they've essentially said is, if we have policy disagreements with our predecessors, what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin
American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses, and what we're gonna do is prosecute systematically the previous administration or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration based on policy differences." Moments later, Rove added, "Now, that might be fine in some little Latin American country that's run by, you know, the latest junta -- it may be the way that they do things in Chicago -- but that's not the way we do things here in America."
-- On the April 22 broadcast of his radio show, Sean Hannity stated of Republican responses to the potential prosecutions, "[A]ll I hear is a bunch of mealy-mouthed complaining about how this prosecution threat is unprecedented and we don't need to investigate past administrations like they do in, you know, these Third World, you know, dictatorships, which by the way, is a great point."
-- On the April 23 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show, guest host Steyn said of prosecuting former Bush officials, "That is the sort of thing that happens in banana republics." He continued: "[I]n banana republics, this week's president for life takes over, and he decides that all the fellows that supported last week's president for life are now criminals, and he prosecutes them. And that's what -- that's what the Obama administration has done."
-- On the April 23 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck stated:
"[Y]our principles as the president of the United States needs to be, we don't make ourselves into a banana republic." He later added, "We also don't want to set the precedent that the next president can come in and turn a political issue into a legal issue and put those people in jail. This is what's happening with [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez now. The guy who's running against him just left the country because they -- this is what banana republics do, OK?"
And that's just the tip of the evil iceberg here, folks.
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